The Boys Life of Abraham Lincoln | Page 9

was the same heavy labor over again that
they had endured when they went from Kentucky to Indiana; but this
time the strength and energy of young Abraham were at hand to inspire
and aid his father, and there was no miserable shivering year of waiting
in a half-faced camp before the family could be suitably housed. They
were not to escape hardship, however. They fell victims to fever and
ague, which they had not known in Indiana, and became greatly
discouraged; and the winter after their arrival proved one of intense
cold and suffering for the pioneers, being known in the history of the
State as "the winter of the deep snow." The severe weather began in the
Christmas holidays with a storm of such fatal suddenness that people
who were out of doors had difficulty in reaching their homes, and not a
few perished, their fate remaining unknown until the melting snows of
early spring showed where they had fallen.
In March, 1831, at the end of this terrible winter, Abraham Lincoln left
his father's cabin to seek his own fortune in the world. It was the
frontier custom for young men to do this when they reached the age of
twenty-one. Abraham was now twenty-two, but had willingly remained
with his people an extra year to give them the benefit of his labor and
strength in making the new home.
He had become acquainted with a man named Offut, a trader and
speculator, who pretended to great business shrewdness, but whose
chief talent lay in boasting of the magnificent things he meant to do.
Offut engaged Abraham, with his stepmother's son, John D. Johnston,
and John Hanks, to take a flatboat from Beardstown, on the Illinois
River, to New Orleans; and all four arranged to meet at Springfield as
soon as the snow should melt.

In March, when the snow finally melted, the country was flooded and
traveling by land was utterly out of the question. The boys, therefore,
bought a large canoe, and in it floated down the Sangamon River to
keep their appointment with Offut. It was in this somewhat unusual
way that Lincoln made his first entry into the town whose name was
afterward to be linked with his own.
Offut was waiting for them, with the discouraging news that he had
been unable to get a flatboat at Beardstown. The young men promptly
offered to make the flatboat, since one was not to be bought; and they
set to work, felling the trees for it on the banks of the stream.
Abraham's father had been a carpenter, so the use of tools was no
mystery to him; and during his trip to New Orleans with Allen Gentry
he had learned enough about flatboats to give him confidence in this
task of shipbuilding. Neither Johnston nor Hanks was gifted with skill
or industry, and it is clear that Lincoln was, from the start, leader of the
party, master of construction, and captain of the craft.
The floods went down rapidly while the boat was building, and when
they tried to sail their new craft it stuck midway across the dam of
Rutledge's mill at New Salem, a village of fifteen or twenty houses not
many miles from their starting-point. With its bow high in air, and its
stern under water, it looked like some ungainly fish trying to fly, or
some bird making an unsuccessful attempt to swim. The voyagers
appeared to have suffered irreparable shipwreck at the very outset of
their venture, and men and women came down from their houses to
offer advice or to make fun of the young boatmen as they waded about
in the water, with trousers rolled very high, seeking a way out of their
difficulty. Lincoln's self-control and good humor proved equal to their
banter, while his engineering skill speedily won their admiration. The
amusement of the onlookers changed to gaping wonder when they saw
him deliberately bore a hole in the bottom of the boat near the bow,
after which, fixing up some kind of derrick, he tipped the boat so that
the water she had taken in at the stern ran out in front, and she floated
safely over the dam. This novel method of bailing a boat by boring a
hole in her bottom fully established his fame at New Salem, and so
delighted the enthusiastic Offut that, on the spot, he engaged its
inventor to come back after the voyage to New Orleans and act as clerk
for him in a store.

The hole plugged up again, and the boat's cargo reloaded, they made
the remainder of the journey in safety. Lincoln returned by steamer
from New Orleans to St. Louis, and from there made his way to New
Salem on foot. He expected to